Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, Zhuhai: Five World Records, One Whale Shark Tank — and the Records, Dated

Chimelong prices the same park by the kind of day it is. Regular days — most weekdays and some weekends — carry the ¥395 standard ticket; specific days — most weekends, holidays, school breaks and special-event days — carry ¥450; peak days are priced separately inside the booking system. Child, senior and concession tickets move ¥280 to ¥315 across the same split, and youth tickets ¥315 to ¥360. Family bundles exist (published 2026 tables list 1 adult + 1 child at ¥675 regular / ¥765 specific, and 2 adults + 1 child at ¥1,070 / ¥1,215), but bundle prices are snapshots — the official ticket page and the checkout in front of you are the authority.

Buy through the official system — the Chimelong website, the Chimelong Tourism app or WeChat mini-programme, the resort's ticket desks or the official hotline — or through an authorised channel. The booking is real-name: it is made against a valid identity document, and a passport is an accepted one. One honest wrinkle: the official booking flow is built around Chinese ID fields, and overseas-visitor ticket types sold through authorised channels exist precisely for passport holders. Whichever route you take, the document number on the booking must be the document in your hand on the day.

Since November 2020 the resort has run on document entry: no document, no gate. Entry is single-use — you go in once, on the booked day, with the original document checked at the turnstile — so the day has to be planned as one continuous visit. Eat before you go in, carry what the children will need, and do not build a plan that assumes a midday exit and return.

The intercity railway is this park's front door. Zhuhai Changlong station has served the resort since August 2020; from Guangzhou South you ride the intercity line towards Zhuhai station (Gongbei) and change in the same station, or take a train that runs through to Zhuhai Changlong on the airport line. From the platform it is an eight-to-ten-minute walk to the park, or a short bus, taxi or resort shuttle hop. City buses 14, 86, K10, K11 and Z55 stop at the resort for arrivals from inside Zhuhai.

The park sits in Hengqin, directly across the water from Macau, and it pulls visitors from three border systems. From Macau, cross at Hengqin Port — a 24-hour crossing right in the park's neighbourhood — then take a taxi or the resort's free shuttle. From Hong Kong, the bridge shuttle bus runs about 45 minutes to the Zhuhai side of the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, then it is roughly 40 minutes by taxi; direct cross-border coaches from Hong Kong to the resort hotels skip the second change entirely. Count the border crossing itself in your timing — the park ticket solves none of it.

The Whale Shark Aquarium is the reason this park exists, and it is at its best early: 22.7 million litres behind a single acrylic panel 39.6 metres long and 8.3 metres high — still, panel for panel, one of the great aquarium windows on earth. Go straight there at the 10:00 opening, take it slowly, and then come back for a second, shorter visit later in the day. The crowd flow, the light and the animals are all different on the second pass, and the second pass is the one most day-trippers never get.

The five Guinness titles were certified at the opening in 2014, and they were real. They are also dated: the world's-largest-aquarium and largest-single-tank titles moved in 2023 to Chimelong Spaceship, in this same resort, with about 75.35 million litres of water and a single tank of about 56.45 million litres. Ocean Kingdom's whale shark tank remains among the largest single tanks in the world, and the park's 2015 Thea Award — the first ever won by a Chinese theme park — does not expire. Enjoy the scale; just refuse any seller who quotes 2014 in the present tense.

Between the aquariums, the park runs eight themed areas and fifteen headline attractions, including three coasters and two water rides. The Parrot Coaster — a B&M wing coaster on nearly 1,300 metres of track — enforces the park's one fully published height rule: nobody under 1.32 metres, nobody over 1.95 metres. Everything else publishes its own limits at the ride and in the official visitor notice. Remember that zones close before the park does — some areas stop around 19:30 — so ride early and aquarium late, not the other way round.

Chimelong publishes the day's operating and performance announcement on its official channels, and the Chimelong Tourism app and mini-programme carry the day's hours, show times, map and notices. The nightly ocean fireworks show over the central lake is included in the ticket and runs daily, weather permitting. Build the day around the printed show times rather than wandering between them — in an aquarium park, the performances are the skeleton and the exhibits are what you hang on it.

The resort's free shuttle buses link the hotels with Ocean Kingdom through the day — the Hengqin Bay Hotel line runs roughly 08:30 to 21:30 at 15-to-30-minute intervals, adjusted to park hours — and dedicated buses serve Gongbei, Jiuzhou Port, Zhuhai Airport and Hengqin Port. If you are sleeping in the resort, the last shuttle is your deadline; if you are leaving Hengqin, the intercity station's last trains matter more. Decide which one governs your evening before the fireworks, not after them.